あさりせし水のみさびに閉ぢられて
菱の浮葉にかはづ鳴くなり
菱の浮葉にかはづ鳴くなり
- Roma-ji
-
Asari seshi mizu no misabi ni tojirarete hishi no ukiha ni kawazu naku nari
- English Translation
-
The water where birds
once foraged now lies sealed
beneath the scum,
and on the floating leaves of caltrop
I hear the river frogs
- Meaning
- The water where birds once foraged is now sealed beneath a film of scum, and on the floating leaves of the water caltrop the river frogs are singing.
- Commentary
-
Book Three Summer Poems 203
Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The pond where waterbirds once foraged is now, in deep summer, sealed under a film of scum spread across its surface, and on the caltrop leaves floating there the river frogs are singing. The stagnant stillness of a summer pond covered with scum and dotted with caltrop leaves is caught through the voices of the frogs.
The author, "Minamoto no Toshiyori Ason," was the son of Major Counselor Minamoto no Tsunenobu. A central poet of Emperor Horikawa's circle, he compiled the Kin'yō Wakashū at Retired Emperor Shirakawa's command and wrote the treatise Toshiyori Zuinō. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
First line, "asari seshi": "asari" is birds searching for food, and "shi" the attributive past auxiliary.
Second line, "mizu no misabi ni": "misabi" is scum floating on the water's surface.
Third line, "tojirarete": "rare" is passive: "being sealed over."
Fourth line, "hishi no ukiha ni": "on the floating leaves of water caltrop." The next poem, 204, also depicts a summer waterside thick with plants.
Fifth line, "kawazu naku nari": "kawazu" are river frogs, and "nari" expresses inference from sound. Where "naku kawazu kana" in poem 117 of Book Two sang of frogs in late spring as the kerria fell, this poem sings of frogs on a summer pond.
- Author
- Minamoto no Toshiyori
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
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